Resource Archive

Community Event Materials

Here are 10 free banners on women’s health suitable for use at community and health promotion events. These banners contain information on a range of health issues that women in Victoria face and were designed to raise awareness of the differences in women’s experience of health.

Equal Remuneration Case and the Equal Pay Campaign — 2011-2013

Did you know that in February 2011 the gender pay gap between men and women in Australia was at 17.2% with women earning $237.50 per week less than their male counterparts[1]?

This significant pay gap is due to a number of factors that include workforces continuing to be dominated by one sex with female dominated industries such as aged care, childcare and social and community services continuing to be poorly remunerated[2]. The low wage levels associated with female dominated sectors can largely be attributed to a historical and systemic devaluing of what has traditionally been labelled as “women’s work”.

In March 2010 the Australian Services Union (ASU) lodged an application for an equal remuneration order with Fair Work Australia. The argument being pursued by unions representing social, community and disability workers is that the sector is underpaid due to gender discrimination. The application aims to increase the pay of workers covered by the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Industry Award (formerly SACS award).

WHIN supports the Equal Remuneration case. This case presents a significant step forward in attempting to reduce the gender pay gap. For this reason WHIN endorses the ASU Equal Pay Campaign as a strategy to improve women’s economic participation.

WHIN has supported the Equal Pay Campaign in the following ways:

Staff attendance at the National Equal Pay Day of Action rallies

Signing onto the ASU Campaign Statement of Support

Signing onto the Australian Council of Social Services Sector statement

Advocating to local Members of Parliament to support the campaign

Raising awareness of the campaign among WHIN members, Facebook friends and twitter followers

Hosting a WHIN Member breakfast prior to the June Equal Pay Day of Action rally.

Climate change is the most recent priority area of WHIN’s work to remove barriers to women accessing good health and wellbeing. Our submission to the Victorian Government's Climate Change Green Paper discusses a number of factors that increase women's vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, such as gendered roles, unequal access to wealth, and power and privilege.

WHIN’s submission calls for the inclusion of women as a priority population in the goals and action plans of the Municipal Public Health Plan. In particular, we recommend the inclusion of older women, lesbians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds in action plans; inclusion of gender disaggregated data for each health goal; and continued focus on reducing family violence.

Submission to the new National Women’s Health Policy — 2009

WHIN welcomed the opportunity to make a submission to the National Women's Health Policy and commends the Federal Government on its leadership and commitment to the development of new policy directions designed to improve the health and wellbeing of Australian women.

WHIN made a submission to the 2008 Productivity Commission’s inquiry into paid parental leave. The inquiry was a response to a request by the Federal Government to look into the economic and social costs and benefits of paid maternity, paternity and parental leave. The Commission published its report on paid parental leave on 12 May 2009.

Report on the Northern Region Counselling and Group Work Service Partnership Model for Women — 2008

This 2008 report documents the development and implementation of integrated and collaborative work practices and systems for provision of family violence services, including mainstream and specialist services, in Melbourne’s Northern metropolitan area. This report remains a relevant resource for the direction it provides on how and where work needs to continue.

Report background: A new approach to improve the integration of family violence services has been effective since July 2005 as part of the whole-of-state government Integrated Family Violence reform. In 2008 the Department of Human Services, Office of Housing offered grants to the family violence and youth homelessness sectors to document effective integrated service models.

This 2008 report evaluates the first six months of NCARS in Melbourne’s Northern region. The service was established by a network of service providers to deliver a 24-hour, face-to-face crisis response to women experiencing family violence while improving integration of family violence services. NCARS is part of the Integrated Family Violence Service Reform in Victoria, which aims to support better counselling, information, support and advocacy services.

Submission to Volunteering Australia — 2008

WHIN made a submission on women and volunteering to Volunteering Australia’s 2008 discussion paper, Towards a National Volunteer Strategy, to assist in progressing a National Volunteer Strategy. It was great to see that volunteering Australia included WHIN’s recommendation to consider gender in its strategy.

Abortion Information Paper — 2007

Women’s Health in the North’s (WHIN’s) submission contributed to statewide advocacy to decriminalise abortion in Victoria, which began with state MP Candy Broad’s 2007 introduction of a Private Member’s bill to decriminalise abortion. In response, Premier Brumby promised to decriminalise abortion and referred the issue to the Victorian Law Reform Commission. The Commission received a number of submissions and has, since then, submitted their recommendations to the Victorian State Government. In October 2008 the Victorian Parliament voted to decriminalise abortion.

In November 2007, The Key Centre for Women's Health in Society (University of Melbourne), The Royal Women's Hospital, Family Planning Victoria and Women's Health Victoria hosted a conference, Abortion in Victoria: Where are we now? Where do we want to go? Participants endorsed a document, Abortion in Victoria: The Melbourne Declaration.

Exploring Community Connectedness for Women in Melbourne’s North — 2006

This is WHIN’s 2006 report on the relationship between community connectedness and initiatives to improve the health and wellbeing of women in Melbourne’s Northern metropolitan region. The report contains case studies of interventions such as a community action campaign to support geographically isolated women in the rural fringe areas of Melbourne’s north and a visiting pets program in which volunteers and their pets visited women in aged-care facilities.

Women in Melbourne’s North: A Data Book for Program and Service Planning in Health — 2005

This resource brings together information about women’s lives to support health planners across Melbourne’s Northern region. The report includes demographic and health data drawn from a range of sources including the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2001 Census of Population and Housing), the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset, the Victorian Burden of Disease Study, the Health Costs of Violence (VicHealth), Centrelink, and the Perinatal Data Collection Unit. The report is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in improving the health and wellbeing of women in their local area.

Copies are available free from WHIN on request. A small postage and handling fee applies. Contact WHIN on 03 9484 166603 9484 1666 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Macedonian Women and Breast Cancer: A Model of Psychosocial Support for Early Detection and Treatment — 2005

This article by Katerina Aleksoska is reproduced with permission from the Australian Journal of Primary Health. It discusses key controversies surrounding the early detection, management and prevention of breast cancer as a backdrop to considering the psychosocial support needs of women living with breast cancer. It also describes an innovative model, developed by WHIN in 2004, for women with the greatest need for support – in this case, Macedonian women in Melbourne’s Northern metropolitan region.

Women Tell Us the Issues — 2005

This article by Rosamaria Tascone discusses the issues women are concerned about as frequent users of the health care system.

Gender Planning Checklist — 2005

This resource is a program-planning tool aimed at improving the health outcomes of our communities by adopting a gender-sensitive approach. The resource offers a background to gender-sensitive perspectives and ‘A Quick Checklist for Gender Sensitive Planning’.

Grandmothering Across Cultures — 2004

This is a step-by-step guide suitable for establishing a project for grandmothers or as a reference point for seeking innovative ideas on how to resource grandmothers from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.

Voices Against Violence: Women’s Lives, Women’s Health — 2004

This transcript captures the proceedings of the ‘Voices Against Violence’ conference which was held as part of the international ‘16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women’ campaign in December 2003. The conference explored the health impacts of violence against women for young, middle-aged and older women.

Enterprising Women — 2004

If you are looking to design a business education program for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women, WHIN’s 2005–2007 Enterprising Women business education program offers a comprehensive model as well a range of resources, including recently updated financial literacy guides in 11 languages.

More than 100 women participated in this program across Melbourne’s northern metropolitan region, with six business education programs conducted in community centres in the Brunswick, North Carlton, Heidelberg West, East Preston, Fawkner and Lalor areas.

This project was designed to explore the potential of micro finance to practically assist and empower – through skills development, sharing with other women, confidence building and education – newly arrived and migrant women in the Whittlesea area.

The Women’s Micro Finance Project was a joint action-research pilot project between WHIN and Kildonan Child and Family Services. The pilot project (July 2003 – June 2004) was ground breaking in that no similar projects were known to exist within Australia. The aim was to pilot a no-interest, credit-based loan system to support the development of micro enterprises by a small group of women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.